


The universe is chaos, but sometimes it works in our favor

by actmademoiselle



Category: La casa de papel | Money Heist (TV)
Genre: Angst?, Avengers Assemble but with the gang members who lived in Argentina, Flashbacks, Gen, M/M, Major Character Death is just Andres but he's already dead so idk if that counts, Martin deserves happiness, Martin goes on an Odyssey to beat Sergio up, OR IS HE, and a step on the path to happiness is to punch Sergio in the face
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:28:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26322694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/actmademoiselle/pseuds/actmademoiselle
Summary: It's been almost a year since Andres died in the Mint and Martin, in an impulsive attempt to stop feeling all this pain, flies back to Argentina. His first night out he finds an empty bar, an inquisitive woman, someone from his past, and a new purpose - to track down Sergio and make sure he knows this is all his fault.In short, Martin bumps into Nairobi and Helsinki after they've just been made by a gang member.-------------------------And you were in love with him, she says.Martin looks up, ready to fashion his face into a scowl, to question how drunk she is, except that he - doesn’t. She is looking at him with understanding. Not distaste. Not even pity. Understanding.Martin says nothing, just looks.Agata, we need to go, sounds from just behind him. Footsteps stop immediately.Martin turns his head, and there is - oh. An interesting prospect. A big guy with tattoos leading down his arms, and - oh. Blood on his hands.Martin hasn’t wondered before why this bar is so empty, but he starts to now.
Relationships: Berlin | Andrés de Fonollosa/Palermo | Martín Berrote, Helsinki | Mirko Dragic & Nairobi | Ágata Jiménez, Helsinki | Mirko Dragic/Palermo | Martín Berrote, Nairobi | Ágata Jiménez & Palermo | Martín Berrote
Comments: 6
Kudos: 32





	The universe is chaos, but sometimes it works in our favor

**Author's Note:**

> So this basically wrote itself after I realized Nairobi and Helsinki spent their two years in Argentina. If people like this, I have a plan to continue this story, have actual quality content with my Argentina-bound trio, and get Martin over to Sergio, to do what he intends. Or maybe find something he wasn't expecting? ;)
> 
> I'm sorry this is such a lousy story is a line from Richard Siken's poetry.

_I’m sorry this is such a lousy story_ , Martin says, because there is a silence to be filled after he stopped talking. He is drunk on tequila, and he is talking to a woman, not a man in his sight. Just him, the barmaid, tequila and the woman. His first night out in Buenos Aires does not seem promising.

_He sounds like a dick_ , the woman says and downs her drink in a commisatory way.

_Yep,_ Martin agrees, and stares ahead. He has nothing more to say to her. She asked him why he was here, and maybe it was the loneliness, maybe it was the jewelry shop he passed on the way over - one look and his treacherous mind immediately found which pieces Andres would want to take - or maybe it was how empty the bar was, how hopeless Martin felt about his prospects of finding a man to take to bed tonight, but he told her everything. Well, almost everything. He said Andres was a business man, his life long business partner, who went away to form a merger with a rival company, and then promptly died on their building site. Bloodily. Crashed by… Martin didn’t remember anymore what he made up. But it hurt, a lot, definitely. 

_And you were in love with him_ , she says.

Martin looks up, ready to fashion his face into a scowl, to question how drunk she is, except that he - doesn’t. She is looking at him with understanding. Not distaste. Not even pity. Understanding.

Martin says nothing, just looks.

_Agata, we need to go_ , sounds from just behind him. Footsteps stop immediately.

Martin turns his head, and there is - oh. An interesting prospect. A big guy with tattoos leading down his arms, and - oh. Blood on his hands.

Martin hasn’t wondered before why this bar is so empty, but he starts to now. He hopes this isn’t some new gang’s bar that he unknowingly walked into. That would be such an anticlimax. He doesn’t know this part of town, it wasn’t a part you’d ever walk into as a young child if your parents cared at all what you did, and it wasn’t a part you’d walk with Andres, so. The only parts of Buenos Aires he can now go to are the parts that are new to him as well. His home city, and he knows nothing.

_Buenas noches,_ he says, pretending to be unmoved, and downs his umpteenth shot of tequila.

_Nairobi, are you alright?_ , the giant says. So he thinks Martin might be with whomever he just fought. That gives Martin some negotiating power to get himself out of here. And he should, he should just leave quickly, slither out of the doors, not die tonight, not after everything, not go down this way. Maybe he’s really drunk. Maybe it’s providence. Instead of leaving, he turns to the woman, and out of impulse says,

_You’ve been to Kenya? I’ve always wanted to travel there_ , cutting her off as she answers the giant _I’m fine._

Africa, that’s a promising continent. A continent completely empty of memories. Full of new experiences. A blank slate. Maybe he should have flown there instead of Argentina, because really, how can he start again here?

_It’s a beautiful city_ , she says with a spark in her eye. She doesn’t think he’s a threat, probably because he just told her his unimpressive life story. He bares his teeth.

_Maybe I should go there,_ he thinks out loud. _How long is the flight?_

_I don’t know,_ Nairobi says, eyeing him up and down. _You can check tomorrow when you’re sober._

Martin laughs in her face, because really, why would he ever be sober. Nothing good happens when he’s sober. When he’s drunk, or at least a little tipsy, he lives. He eats. He manages to get himself out of that hotel room he’s spent the last week in, hyperventilating because why in hell would he think returning here would help, where echoes of Andres, young Andres, charming Andres, walk all over the city for him. He walks when he’s tipsy, and he lives. When he’s sober, he looks at the gun, and he thinks of the fact there is nothing left for him. No, sober doesn’t work.

_You live around here?_ , Agata asks

He can’t stop laughing.

_You should leave here, señor_ , the giant says as he walks closer. Oh. Señor. He has put on some very expensive clothes, that’s true, an attempt at making people think he’s just a tourist here. He likes the way the giant calls him señor. He wonders what else he could call him. He wonders how far those tattoos go under that shirt.

_Why is that?_ , Martin says, just to be a contrary bitch.

_There’s been an incident,_ Nairobi supplies, and she should really shut up. He was asking the man with the deliciously strong arms.

_Hmmm_ , Martin makes a non-committal sound, and now he’s fully turned so that he can look straight at the man. Well, not straight.

The man looks back, an uncertain smile in the corner of his mouth. Oh, that’s interesting.

_Martin Berrotte_ , sounds from the door. He looks past the man, and his blood runs cold. How could he have thought his past would leave him be. Why had he come back here. Why had he thought there would be something for him here, since there wasn’t anywhere else. In here, this place where Andres found him and caught him and pulled him from, leaving a trail of people who lost against them. Or maybe this is what he really wanted, maybe that’s why he came back to the place he swore he would never come back to. To meet one of those people again and get his due.

The person in the door is Pedro, gang member, Andres’s colleague. Andres’s colleague who in the middle of a heist had proposed to Martin crossing the Spaniard, the dumb foreigner, and leaving him to take the fall. Pedro, who Martin had promptly rendered unconscious with his gun. He should have rendered him dead.

His drinking companions both look terrified. Pedro must have risen in ranks during the last decade.

_We want no trouble_ , Nairobi says, and it seems that Martin has been right in both instances. He has walked into a gang problem, and this Nairobi woman is involved.

_Where is he?_ , Pedro asks, remaining cautiously in the doorway.

_Dead_ , Martin answers, because really, he’s drunk. He motions at the barmaid for another drink, but his eyes never leave Pedro’s, so he doesn’t know if she’s too scared to move or not.

_I know,_ Pedro says, and Martin’s breath hitches in his throat. Pedro laughs. He’s watched the footage. He wanted to make Martin say it.

_Andres de Fonollosa_ , he says, and Martin feels a gun being put to his back. Well. The barmaid is not too scared to move, that is certain.

He hears the other two inhale loudly, as if that name means something to them. It might. So many people watch the news. The woman sounded like she was from Spain, she would have heard of the heist of the century. Whole of Spain lived for Sergio’s tightly created story last year.

_How did he manage to get from under your sight for long enough to die?_ , Pedro asks in that self-satisfied way when he knows each and every one of his words is a dagger.

Martins sees in the corner of his eye that Nairobi takes her eyes from Pedro to look at him, and oh, she must have figured out his story from before is connected. Well. If Pedro is here, she’ll probably be dead soon.

_How come you’re walking into a bar alone, without your fans?_ , Martin says because he’s, well, drunk and hopeless, and his brain isn’t operating on full power.

_I’m looking for that tall Serb_ , Pedro says. _There is a reward for him_. Sliding across the room, his eyes pin on Nairobi. _For her, too._

Interesting. Martin might be the only one to die tonight, so he turns to the woman.

_You’re a criminal? That’s not like you,_ he pouts. She keeps looking at him in shock, and it seems like there’s a piece of the puzzle he’s missing. The gun now rests against his right arm. The barmaid keeps the weapon in a confident grip, but she won’t do anything without a command.

Three more men enter from a side door right behind Nairobi, weapons ready in their hands.

_You know, you shouldn’t try anything right now, Martin_ , Pedro continues as he walks in, now sure in his numbers. _I might let you go. Look at you, so miserable, can’t do anything by yourself, can you. At the end of the day, you’re still from here. Don’t move and Anita will even pour you another glass when we’re finished._

Well. Agata seemed nice, the Serb seemed hot, but Martin still has the slightest will to live when drunk, so there you go.

_You should thank me_ , Pedro continues, and that unnerving smile is back on his face. That honeyed, self-satisfied tone back in his speech. Daggers readied in hiding. _They were there when Andres died and didn’t save him._

They were there when Andres died and didn’t save him.

He is still looking at Nairobi, and she closes her eyes in pain, and her face is the opposite of a mask. Everything shown so clearly. It’s true. She was there. In the Mint. With Andres.

Under Sergio.

She can contact Sergio.

And suddenly, just like this, just like that, Pedro again hands him the weapon he will fall from.

_In the Mint?_ , he asks, searchingly. Nairobi’s face, the open book, writes the answer for him.

_With your friend,_ Pedro delivers his dessert.

He might die from this, but it’s the only chance of finding Sergio and beating the shit out of him. Also, Andres died to save these people. There is no way Pedro can be allowed to profit from his death.

Martin steals the gun from the barmaid’s hands with ease, and trains it on Nairobi.

_No!_ , the Serb yells behind him, clearly not one who was hired for Sergio’s elaborate plan because of his brain.

_Thank you for the opportunity_ , Martin says to Pedro, who has the three men’s guns focused on him in a second.

_She’s worth so much more alive,_ he warns.

_But still something dead, I presume?_ , Martin is loving this. He hasn’t had this much fun since. Well. Since.

_Baja tu jodida arma_ , Pedro yells, and Martin laughs as he rests the barrel of his gun against Nairobi’s temple and focuses on her.

She’s looking at his eyes, that won’t do.

He looks down at her lips, and it doesn’t take her long to follow, to look down at his, and he mouths _Duck_ , hoping that she might -

She does. He fires, and of course he manages to take them down by surprise. He turns to find one of his own. The Serb must have caught on at some point, because he is currently holding Pedro to the ground with his entire body, and okay that looks hot, and Pedro’s weapon is thrown way far out of reach.

Yes, Martin is loving this. Buenos Aires might have been his best decision in a long time.


End file.
